My first collection in live!

I still remember when I told you first about wanting to start a fashion brand. At that point I was running my firm for just over two years and I just realised that, after all these years of studying and practicing law, I had a different calling.

It was November. By the end of January I could think of nothing else. I didn’t want to go to work every day. How do you know you are desperate? When you wish you fell ill. Not one day off sick. Truly, long term ill. That’s how unhappy I became.

At the beginning of February I was walking from the office to the bus stop when I stepped of the curb and my ankle gave in. The pain was immense but since I didn’t fall, I thought nothing of it. A few days after when the paid didn’t subside, we went to an A&E and I walked out with a plaster. I’d broken my ankle.

Sometimes I think the Universe put in these stops on purpose for us. For me, these six weeks were definitely a time when I started to prepare for change in direction. At first, it was chaotic. I had no idea. I drew a coat I wanted to have made and ordered some fabric samples. They arrived and were quite awful. Nothing like I imagined them to be.

I started to read up and since I had over six weeks of staying at home, you can imagine I had quite a lot of time on my hands. The more I read, the more I realised that there was a whole world of fashion, from sourcing fabric to production to distribution and everything in between. I realised that I needed the to learn and prepare.

It took a while, learning about the whole process. Then there was at least six months of working out how I wanted the brand to look and feel, before I even handed the brief to branding agency. Then there was sourcing fabric and actually making first samples. Business school, copywriting course and a whole host of classes I invested in. Building my email list. Fittings. Learning how to do landing pages and advertising. And so many other bigger and smaller building blocks I needed to put down.

At one point, just after I received the finish samples and before production, I was so paralysed with self doubts that for three months I did nothing. I just drew fashion figures for months, unable to move forward. During that time, I had absolutely zero belief in myself.

Only after going to Paris in December 2018 and having the collection photographed there (not professionally at first) made me realised that I was on the right track. I also knew that if I didn’t move forward, I would always be doing what I no longer wanted to do. I needed to create a new reality for myself. I pulled myself together and went to work.

I decided to launch the collection first to my email subscribers. It was nerve wracking, to sed out the first email. An hour later, I’ve made my first sale. Yes, I did a little dance. Yes, I called my family and friends (and so did my husband). You know what? It was the best feeling because I realised that someone wanted to have a piece of my vision. I have since sold more dresses and now I’m working on a winter collection. The ball is definitely rolling and what used to be my dream, is now becoming my reality.

In today’s day and age we need less fashion, not more and I knew that I needed to dress it and build sustainability into the core of Sascha & The Boys. There are things I’m doing like working with leftover stock from last years (less waste and also better prices for my customers). Having the dresses made in good conditions in Poland. In the future, I want to work with technology that creates a beautiful silk fabric out of banana skin waste. And of course one of most important things- I create timeless pieces, the sort of items you pull out from your wardrobe for years instead of discarding it afer a season. I truly believe there there is no future for fast fashion companies.